East by West Indies

At a time when a sizable chunk of the American population is debating whether immigrants are lazy sponges or job-stealing sponges, it may be refreshing to learn that Trinidad has a national holiday celebrating the arrival of Indians to its land. It was 1845, and they were workers coming to quench the country’s withering labor shortage. Of course, that ‘‘labor shortage’’ was actually how plantation owners described a result of African slaves’ winning their freedom — a thought almost as depressing as the fact that the Indians were actually indentured servants brought in to take their place. But today, Trinis are chest-thumpingly proud of their blended heritage.

Those Indians, their descendants and the waves of immigrants after them fundamentally reshaped Trini culture, music and food. So much so that, if you wandered into any random Trini restaurant, as I did at Singh’s Roti Shop in Trini-rich Richmond Hill, Queens, you could be forgiven for assuming you’d just arrived at an Indian buffet. (Well, if you somehow missed the Olympics-like procession of Caribbean flags, the accents and the D.J. who starts the party by bumping bouncy soca riddims at 9 a.m.) Everywhere you look, there are curries, rices and rotis.

Nearby, Dolly Sirju teaches Trini cooking classes in her home, through a company called the League of Kitchens. When I attended one, she welcomed us warmly but spoke with nonsense-free authority, and she didn’t want to hear any noise about her curries seeming like Indian food. ‘‘My great-grandparents moved to Trinidad from India, and Indians ask me, ‘How come you guys make the same thing we make but cook it different?’ ’’ she said before letting out a salty harrumph. ‘‘For me, India is totally different from Trinidad. I’m not fascinated by it. What we do is take a little from each culture — Indian, African, Caribbean, Chinese — and that makes it Trini.’’

Four spoonfuls into her nutty, herbal, spicy chana and aloo, I started to understand. (Actually, I got it after one bite, but I had to take three more — for journalistic purposes.) An everyday staple, the dish shares a look and a name with a typical North Indian curry: Chana means ‘‘chickpeas’’ in Hindi; aloo means ‘‘potatoes’’; the ‘‘and,’’ I assume, is a musical flourish of Caribbean English. But while Indian cooks make a gingery tomato base and grind fresh spices for their dish, Sirju’s version announces its island origins. The flavor is built on a floral wave of shado beni, a cilantro-like herb that grows wild all over Trinidad, stirred in raw and pungent and cooked down to a mellow, sweet swell. (The herb is also called culantro; if you can’t find it, you can substitute a combination of cilantro and parsley.) The stew gets a slow, building heat from fruity Scotch bonnet peppers and aroma from preground Madras curry powder, which was popularized by colonial merchants to create a British market for their spices­. All these flavors drape over soft chickpeas and potatoes to make a dish that’s particular to its homeland. It’s a rare combination of intriguing and satisfying — the kind of thing that sparks some pride. ‘‘There are a lot of Guyanese in this neighborhood,’’ Sirju said. ‘‘But if the Guyanese are having a function, they’ll ask a Trini to come cook.’’

She showed us other Trini kitchen moves: rubbing raw goat with ground cloves, then rinsing it with lemon and water to wash off its gamy taste; puréeing shado beni, parsley and scallions with water to make ‘‘green seasoning,’’ a killer flavor base, even if it sounds like a juice-bar nightmare; griddling roti flatbreads and then whacking the bejesus out of them with paddles to break open their flakes for maximal curry absorption. (The roti is called ‘‘buss-up shut.’’ It means ‘‘busted-up shirt.’’ Everything about it is amazing.)

In the backyard behind the kitchen, Sirju’s sons, clad in white tank tops, were teaching themselves how to take apart a car and put it back together: classic Americana. They disappeared for a while. Then, after hours of cooking, tons of curries and shirts being busted up, the kids came home — with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I wondered if Sirju would take this as an affront — cultural decline at the drive-through. But she pulled out a bottle of Kraft barbecue sauce. ‘‘I make American food,’’ she said. ‘‘My neighbors are American, and when we’re barbecuing, forget it. The whole neighborhood is in my backyard.’’ She handed me a spoonful of the sauce. She’d warmed it with spices, sharpened it with tamarind, then napalmed it with chiles. She took it and made it Trini, made it her own. And she was proud as hell of it.